1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a bread baking apparatus including a container for containing dough and a heating element for heating the container so that the dough in the container is baked.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A conventional automatic home bakery is provided with a microcomputer which controls operation steps of kneading dough stuffs by rotation of a blade to thereby obtain dough, fermenting yeast contained in the dough, baking the dough with a heater, and cooling the bread.
When the bread is baked with the above-described home bakery, a depression is often formed in the upper central portion of the bread. The reason for the forming of such a depression is as follows: The heating of the dough progresses from its circumferential portion adjacent to the circumferential wall of the container to its central portion. Accordingly, the circumferential portion of the dough first hardens and then, the hardening progresses from its circumferential portion to its central portion. Consequently, since the central portion of the dough is rendered softer than the circumferential portion thereof, the upper central portion of the dough is depressed owing to gravity. Such a depression degrades the appearance of the bread baked.